Turbine engines are used as the primary power source for various kinds of aircraft. The engines may also serve as auxiliary power sources that drive air compressors, hydraulic pumps, and industrial electrical power generators. Most turbine engines generally follow the same basic power generation procedure. Compressed air is mixed with fuel and burned, and the expanding hot combustion gases are directed against stationary turbine vanes in the engine. The vanes turn the high velocity gas flow partially sideways to impinge onto turbine blades mounted on a rotatable turbine disk. The force of the impinging gas causes the turbine disk to spin at high speed. Jet propulsion engines use the power created by the rotating turbine disk to draw more air into the engine, and the high velocity combustion gas is passed out of the gas turbine aft end to create forward thrust. Other engines use this power to turn one or more propellers, electrical generators or other devices.
Turbine engines, such as the one described above, typically operate more efficiently at increasingly higher temperatures. Some turbine engine components, such as turbine blades and disks, may experience greater degradation at higher temperatures. In some cases, the engine components may be made of a single crystal composition, and/or another composition, which may be better suited for higher temperatures. However, gas turbine disks fabricated using individually cast and inserted single crystal airfoils tend to be expensive. Additionally, a fabrication period for these components may take several months, which may be undesirable because component designs may be modified for performance improvement at some point during the fabrication period.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have an improved method of fabricating turbine engine components. In addition, it is desirable for the method to be relatively inexpensive and simple to perform. Moreover, it is desirable to have a reduced lead time for fabricating turbine engine components. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the inventive subject matter will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the inventive subject matter and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the inventive subject matter.